Sixteenth Minute (of Fame) - tessica brown, the gorilla glue girl

Episode Date: November 19, 2024

For one day in 2021, all of social media was obsessing over... Gorilla Glue? Tessica Brown ran out of göt2b hair product and used Gorilla Glue instead and one month later, her hair hadn't moved at all. She turned to TikTok for help and immediately became a main character, prompting a complicated months-long saga that included custom surgery, Hollywood managers, a botched rap career, and some of the most startling and scary days of her life. Jamie talks to Tessica about the ordeal four years later and gets the real story. Follow Tessica here: https://www.instagram.com/im_d_ollady Tickets to Jamie's LA show here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-tiny-man-is-trying-to-kill-me-special-tapings-tickets-1077914925559?aff=oddtdtcreator See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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It's Black Business Month and Money and Wealth podcast with John Hope Bryant is tapping in. I'm breaking down how to build wealth, create opportunities, and move from surviving to thriving. It's time to talk about ownership, equity, and everything in between. Black and brown communities have historically been lasting lives. Let me just say this. AI is moving faster than civil rights legislation ever did. Listen to Money and Wealth from the Black Effect Podcast Network on iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. If you're looking for another heavy podcast about trauma, the saying it.

This is for the ones who had to survive and still show up as brilliant, loud, soft, and whole. The unwanted sorority is where black women, fims, and gender expansive survivors of sexual violence rewrite the rules on healing, support, and what happens after. And I'm your host and co-president of this organization. organization, Dr. Leitra Tate. Listen to the unwanted sorority, new episodes every Thursday on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. CallZone Media. Hi, everybody. Jamie here again, reminding you that if you're in the Los Angeles area, I am taping my very first special called The Tiny Man is trying to kill me on December 4th.

There are two shows. The first one is basically sold out, but there are still tickets available. to the 930. I have the link in the description, and I hope to see you there. Enjoy the episode. Early 2021 is a time many of us have complete memory holes for, and not without good reason. In the U.S., COVID was still ravaging the country after the spread of the virus had been repeatedly sabotaged by conspiracy theorists in and outside of the government. lockdown restrictions were reaching the year mark after an extremely contentious election where COVID missed the opportunity to do the first and only funny thing it could do,

which was kill Donald Trump. There was something that happened on January 6th of this year, but I can't quite recall what it was. It was a bad time. And collectively, I don't know that we really remember it. there's some science behind this. Complicated issue, but the short story is that your brain can protect you from a traumatic memory or event or period of time. You know when you're listening to this at the moment it comes out, you probably won't remember this time very well if you live in the

U.S. soon either. Because for most people, and surely to different degrees, depending on what your day-to-day was like during COVID and if anyone in your life was personally affected, this was a terrifying time. Add this to Black Lives Matter demonstrations being met with violent reprisal from police forces and no vaccine in sight until the very end of 2020 with a long line before it got to non-essential workers. And by early 2021, a lot of people were reaching the ends of their ropes. Really think about where you were at around this time. I had it comparatively easy. Podcasting is not essential work, if you can believe it. And even still, by the top of 2021, I was a fucking wreck. I was terrified for my immunocompromised parents across the country.

I was trying to get out of the house to do outreach work. And I'd gotten arrested at a protest in friend of Eric Garcetti's house. Whoops, and I do it again. The lockdown era was horrendous for Americans' mental health. There's extensive reporting on how anxiety, PTSD, and depression increased tremendously during that year and into today. I don't think anyone could look back at their social media at this time and think, wow, I was hanging in pretty well then.

And if you can, you are the fucking weirdo. It was an age where people were knowingly or unknowingly posting their Ls every single day nonstop, because unless you were an essential worker, what the fuck else was there to do? But one L posted during this time made internet history, bringing people together collectively to say, oh my God, in a way that was not centered on a global catastrophe. Of course, plenty of commenters took it too far immediately. But for a single moment on February 3, 2021, all of TikTok wasn't focused on COVID disinformation

or insurrection analysis or, sorry, objectively bad mental health content. No, we were all talking about gorilla glue. Hey, y'all, for those of y'all that knew me know, my hair has been like this for about a month now. It's not by choice. No, it's not by choice. Tessica Brown, the woman who used gorilla glue in her hair.

Your 16th minute starts now. Sixteen minute of fame Sixteen minute of fame Sixteen minute of face One more minute of fame I'm not so bad when you're sitting here on my mind I'm another character to

so you're super bad Welcome back to 16th Minute, the podcast where we take a look at the internet's main characters, talk to them about how their moment affected them, and what it says about us and the internet. My name is Jamie Loftus, and today my phone connected to an ex-boyfriend's Wi-Fi when I was walking by in a neighborhood I didn't know he lived in. Guess he moved! And today, we're talking about the infamous early 2021 gorilla glue hair incident. And look, I've already PTSD'd you by bringing up the later days of the pandemic and you don't deserve it right now.

But bear with me, I really want you to dig into your sad little brain and pull out where you were at in early 2021. Because today's subject, Tessica Brown, and yes, we got the interview baby, was in the same position as everyone was in the world. only she was having to run a full-time daycare called Tessica's Little Angels in the middle of COVID for folks in her neighborhood who still had to work. Plus, she was a mother of five. We were all at the end of our rope, but as you'll see, Tessica didn't get very much grace in the moment or in the public's memory. So let's go back to the dark place.

Come with me, if you dare, to February 2021. Donald Trump's second impeachment trial raged on in Washington, D.C. Fat lot of fucking good that did. Meanwhile, the U.S. reached a 500,000 person death toll to COVID. And in Violet, Louisiana, Pessica Brown ran out of got-to-be blasting freeze spray and needed a quick solution. Was what she did, the smartest decision of anyone's life? No, but hear her out.

It's February 2nd, 2021. Jessica has a lot of stuff going on in her personal life, which she references in our interview, and there is a lot going on in the big, disgusting world. She is a lifelong Louisiana resident, a place where COVID had affected about half a million reported people since 2020 before vaccines were made widely available. In fact, this whole thing happens two days before vaccines were made available. to people 65 and over in Louisiana, and the state's relationship to vaccines is complicated.

Regardless, sometime in early January, Pesica mistakenly sprayed gorilla glue into her hair out of running out of Got to Be, and the next month was rough. Gorilla glue, if you don't know, and you really should, is no joke. So this guy thought he could lick the glue off, basically he took some gorilla glue and he put it on the edges of this cup and then put it on his face

and he thought he could lick the glue off and get this cup off of his face well that didn't really work out very well for him it's a super glue that's been on the market since the 90s eventually prompting the phrase gorilla grip which has been a term of inspiration among keegel's TikTok for years and i refuse to expand on the that sentence, you can do your own research. But Superglue existed in general since the 1940s, because, yes, as every episode of 16th minute inevitably leads to, Superglue, say it with me, is the product of colonialism and war mongering. We don't need to talk about it, but hey, let's talk about it for a second. Switch the music a little, let's make this fun. Superglue was discovered by an

inventor named Dr. Harry Wesley at Kodak, as in the photography company, during World War II, while pitching in to make new gun sites for Allied forces. He didn't end up trademarking the material until the 1950s, but by that time, it had taken on any number of practical and, frankly, horrifying uses over the years. The military times reported that Wesley's invention was later used as a liquid bandage on soldiers in the Vietnam War in order to stem bleeding until someone with an open wound could get to a military hospital. Really think about that. Gross. But it did sort of work and was later tweaked into what's now known as actual liquid bandages like dermabond and trauma seal. And if you had a liquid bandage fanatic like my mom, you will know that

These products really hurt on sensitive skin because while effective, these extreme adhesives are not comfortable. With that in mind, enter Tessica, who at 40 had the expected social media for a person of that demographic at that time. What I'm saying is she was a Facebook mom, and she promoted her business and shared family photos and live streams primarily there and on Instagram. And she posted a lot, but her audience was fairly limited. From what I could find, she mainly stuck to the Zuckerberg products, Facebook and Instagram,

where she had, as she tells me, only a few thousand followers at the time of the guerrilla glue incident. Fast forward to the day she sprayed the glue. It did not go well, but at first, as with any major L, Tessica kept it to herself, not even telling her mother or sister at first. Days later, not only was it not coming out, her scalp was starting to hurt, and it was feeling like it was constricting. She tried everything to try to slow this effect, goo-gone, rubbing alcohol, coconut oil, tea tree oil, you name it, but it became clear that this may not be a googlable problem. So she swallowed her pride, and she reached out to the women in her life, her mother, her sister, her daughters. But that didn't do much either, until, according to Tessica, one of her daughters said,

Hey, maybe someone on TikTok will know what to do. Yes, this is a TikTok story. And per Tessica, she has no idea how or why this particular TikTok went viral. Because prior to the Gorilla Glue story, Tessica had only used TikTok twice. Two posts. One was of her daughter in late 2020, dancing while wearing a face mask, and the other was Tasica herself, lip-syncing to a cover of Countdown by Beyonce. You know the song, you weren't born yesterday. Mom content, right? And then, Tassica's daughter, a true kid of the COVID era, says,

hey, mom, maybe people on TikTok will find you and have some ideas on how to get the glue out. Because not only had TikTok experienced tremendous growth during COVID lockdown, particularly with people hurt kids' age, it had also become notorious for becoming a place of hyper-niche discussion. And so Tessica does, with the self-assurance of a consistent poster, just not a TikTok poster. So she's in her bathroom, filming on her. phone and a hot pink hoodie with full makeup and a long braid. And as in all her posts, Pesca looks great. But yeah, there is something clearly going on with her hair. It's, you know, it's super glued to her head. Here's the 59 seconds that made her famous.

Hey y'all, but those you all that knew me know, my hair has been like this for about a month now. It's not by her choice. No. It's not by choice. When I do my hair, I like, you know, finish it off with the little got to be glue spray. You know, just to keep it in place. Well, I didn't have any more got to be glue spray, so I use this. Gorilla glue spray. Bad, bad, bad idea. Y'all, look, my hair, it don't move.

You get what I'm telling you? It don't move. I've washed my hair 15 times. and it don't move stiff wear my hair so I'm going to tell you all like this if you ever

ever run out of God to be glue spray don't ever ever use this so that clicking noise is the sound of Tessica's nails on her own scalp and this post does go viral on Tick-Tock

basically immediately Tessica says she posted it before bed with no hashtags. TikTok doesn't really respond to that as much. It's just captioned, stiff wear, my hair, which is a reference to a meme where a black mom and her daughter are joking around in a car while the daughter is wearing a new wig. Maybe you've seen it. Right back on.

Right back on. Ooh, no, baby. Yes, yes. Ooh, ooh, ooh, stiff war. Stip war. If you haven't, go watch it. And Tessica has definitely seen this because she's pretty online. And for all intents and purposes, she's just a normal person posting a weird kind of stressful TikTok.

But when she wakes up the morning after posting, glues still in her hair, her TikTok account has gone nuts. She has officially been sucked into the algorithmic vortex. And she asked herself, fucking how? Well, as we've discussed on this show before, that's kind of the whole question with TikTok. Most, if not all social media algorithms are completely diabolical by nature. And again, if you want to know more about that,

I will shout out friend of the show, Max Fisher's book, The Chaos Machine, which breaks down how algorithms have increasingly informed how we consume news and our source. in the space of the last decade. The section where he unpacks a period of time leading up to the 2016 election, where the top brass at YouTube just let the algorithm run itself lives rent-free in my mind forever. The point is, the way that algorithms function remains very opaque to this day.

Something that seems like should maybe not be allowed, given the fact that these algorithms have disproportionate influence on how we receive information, and often disinformation. And in case you're not aware, there's a bit of an infinity saga with TikTok and disinformation, with the platform itself repeatedly vowing that they are definitely taking steps internally to combat disinformation, as recently as this past fall. Although I will say I have some doubt on how effective that's been, I don't really really know what this kind of announcement does to imply TikTok's accountability. It seems more kind of like they're passing the buck to their users. Take a listen. If you try to share content

with an unverified claim, we may also ask you to reconsider before sharing, especially during emergencies and unfolding events. This helps prevent the spread of misinformation. You should still think critically about content that's not labeled as unverified. and report potential harmful misinformation so our safety teams can assess it. Okay, TikTok, give us less. A 2022 report from NewsGuard indicated that when it came to hot-button issues like vaccines, election information, and even things as specific as the January 6th insurrection, around one in five TikTok posts contained disinformation of some kind.

So let's hope a commitment to combating. disinformation is true because TikTok has a very strong influence on internet users right now. It is by far the most addictive platform with the Digital 2024 Global Review Report estimating that the average user clocks in around 34 hours of TikTok use a month. That's followed by YouTube at 28 hours and Facebook at almost 20. Its base is also young in comparison to other people. platforms. Over half of TikTok users are teenagers, and 80% of users say they primarily use the platform to find something entertaining. And if you've ever used it, the TikTok algorithm

is good at figuring out what you specifically will find entertaining. Here's what's in my algorithm on TikTok right now, because making this show has destroyed all of my algorithms. Thank you so much. And the fact that someone called me the buttfloss fairy godmother because I've been telling people where to get their seamless song so they're not... Well, I hope that I don't fall in love with you. I'm sorry. What?

Did you get see that video of that girl who started crying because she started chewing, remineralizing chewing gum and her cavities literally went away? I heard Tati's trying to do live stream. It's flopping. But for the sake of this story, we're talking about the TikTok algorithm. in 2021 specifically, an algorithm we can assume is somewhat different from the crack that they're putting in the TikTok algorithm today. And here's what we knew at the time. According to a report from the New York Times, Ben Smith at the end of that year, the report reviewed internally leaked documents from the China-based company called TikTok Algo 101, which stated the four core

tenants of the app at the time were user value, long-term user value, creator value, and platform value. And it is worth mentioning that TikTok's being a non-American company does affect how it's discussed in Western media. We don't have enough time to unpack it fully, but suffice it to say. Yes, social media and big tech are quite evil, but they're nothing next to Senator Tom Cotton. Here's Senator Tom Cotton talking to TikTok CEO Shouzi Chu in January 2024. So you said today, as you often say, that you live in Singapore. Of what nation are you a citizen? Singapore.

Are you a citizen of any other nation? No, Senator. Have you ever applied for Chinese citizenship? Senator, I serve my nation in Singapore. No, I did not. Have you ever been a member of the Chinese Communist Party? Senator, I'm Singaporean. No. Wow.

so much more of this to look forward to in the next four years. Really cool. The app's ultimate goal in 2021 at the time of the Tesica Brown Post features a term we've also heard in the story of YouTube, or getting as many users as possible to spend as much time as possible on TikTok. And this almost always leads to the algorithm pushing content. that is manipulative in some way. This Times report detailed a tendency for TikTok to focus on, quote-unquote, sad content to get people to keep watching and even provides a little equation that details how it ranked which posts to boost relating to likes, plays, comments, and time-watched.

It goes on to detail the ways in which TikTok aims to keep people engaged by recommending similar but not too similar content in order to avoid boredom. Again, this is an echo of the YouTube algorithm story that can and has led to users getting coaxed into increasingly extreme content. With these qualifiers in mind, it's not super surprising that Tessica Brown's video performed well within TikTok's algorithm. The video is kind of long. You're definitely not sure how it's going to end, the subject is sad and upset, and even now, Tessica says in our interview that she understands that in some sick way, it could be entertaining to watch her struggle.

Or at very least, you can't look away. And when Tessica's TikTok went live under her username, I'm underscore D underscore old lady, pretty funny, viewers could not look away. which prompted a very polarized comment section. Hit the music. Why, why, why would you do that? Girl, you're lucky it didn't get in your eyes, ears, hands. What the fuck is wrong with you? This better blow the fuck up because damn.

I'm sorry, girl. Girl, I'm so sorry, but this is so funny. Baby oil, googon, Dawn, Dish Soap. And nail polish remover, last resort. Girl, please update us. This is literally a plot of a victorious episode. Baby, you made a helmet. You could survive a natural disaster.

Winning a Brie could never. You're unstoppable. Okay, hopefully I'm not the only person that wanted to fact-check that next to last comment. Was there an episode of Nickelodeon's early 2010's Tween Show Victoria? about this subject. What is this for? Oh, that's glue. Yeah, but why is it with your makeup supplies?

What's the problem? This is grisly glue. It's like an industrial cement. He! Cat? Tell me you didn't use this on Tori's face? Uh... Yes, indeed.

This was a victorious episode from 2010, in which a character played by one Ariana Grande, Superglues a monster mask to Victoria Justice's face. I love culture, but it's here where the guerrilla glue story splits in two, because Tessica has become a main character off of her third TikTok ever. And, as she hints at in the post, she's also starting to be in a lot of physical pain from a month's worth of ever-constricting superglue. I'll let Tasica share the more specific details in our interview, but this hurt.

And what the TikTok comments on this ever-growing post, at present it sits around 56 million views, confirmed was that she seemed to have tried everything that was possible to do from home in the month the glue had been in her hair. But still, she kept trying. The next day, Tasica posted a TikTok of her squeezing a handbook, full of pantine into her palm, rubbed it into her hair, and showed that where there would normally be a lather, nothing happened. Like, this is the life that I guess I'm going to live.

I'm so, yeah. No, no, no, no. No. This is a hard clip to watch. she's close to tears here, and you can hear the business of her household continuing just outside of the bathroom. Later that day, Tessica posted again,

acknowledging how viral her first posted gone, while continuing to ask for help. She writes, Thanks for you guys encouraging words and ideas to get rid of this forever ponytail. I will try some today when I get off from work and I will keep you guys posted. By the way, if you see me walking around with a headscarf,

just mind your business, L.O.L. So from the jump, Tesica had a good sense of humor about the incident, even as the pain and the mocking comments continued to roll in. You are the reason items have instructions. Call Gorilla Glue customer service. After they stop laughing, they may give you a commercial deal. But it's clear that as time goes on,

Tessica was becoming increasingly desperate, updating her increasing online following on solutions that hadn't worked until finally, on February 6th, she checked into the St. Bernard Parish Hospital nearby to seek professional help. And after that visit, she wasn't much better off. The hospital estimated that using acetone and sterile water would make the whole process take about 20 hours, and Tessica opted to go home and continued to work at it with her sister, instead. Once back home, video footage shows Tessica panicked and completely beside herself, as her sister used acetone wipes from the hospital to try and loosen the glue's hold.

But it's worth mentioning. Tessica does lean into posting updates on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram immediately. There's not really a time where she's rejecting the attention. And this isn't a criticism. It actually reminds me quite a bit. bit of our Ken Bone episode. He was very baffled when he became a star, but you never really saw him resisting it. But of course, the difference between these stories is significant. Tessica was, in many cases, being openly mocked instead of celebrated like Ken. She is also a black woman and subject to all of the misogy noir that comes with that. But it does feel worth mentioning that she doesn't really resist the attention around this story.

What she does resist is people and the press misrepresenting who she is and what really happened. So, Tessica has become a TikTok main character quite literally overnight. And mainstream media is pretty quick to catch on to this story. I think in part because media was generally faster to catch on to online stories in general during lockdown, because of the intensity of eyes on TikTok at the time. We're seeing headlines like. Woman's gorilla glue hairstyle on TikTok has everyone baffled. Tessica Brown is not just the gorilla glue girl.

Her message to the internet. Gorilla glue said it's sorry to hear about the woman who accidentally glued her hair in place. The undeniable hold of the gorilla glue girl and what it says about the empathy of the internet. Meanwhile, Tessica's support system was not satisfied with the options that the hospital was offering. We talk about that more in our interview. And on Sunday, February 7th, the family starts a go-fund me for Tessica in the hopes of getting money for an actual solution. The goal for the fundraiser was only $1,500, but because of the number of eyes on the story, the account quickly surged to over $23,000. And of course, Gorilla Glue couldn't resist getting in on

the free PR once Tessica had returned from the hospital. On February 8th, the company tweeted that, quote, We are very sorry to hear about the unfortunate incident that Ms. Brown experienced using our spray adhesive on her hair. We are glad to see in her recent video that Ms. Brown has received medical treatment from her local medical facility and wish her the best. However, Gorilla Glue stood their ground, saying in the same post that, It was not, you know, intended for hair. But I was heartened to see that the comments around this post are pretty firmly on Tessica's side. Commenters suggested that Gorilla Glue should just donate money to Tessica to show good faith.

Some mention that the spray does not, in fact, explicitly say it shouldn't be used on hair. And others warned that Tessica very well may have a good lawsuit on her hand, even comparing it to the McDonald's Hot Coffee lawsuit of 1994. I'd recommend the You're Wrong About episode. on that topic if you don't know more about that lawsuit. And there were rumors that Tessica planned to sue Gorilla Glue that were mentioned in a couple of news sources, but Tessica says that this was never true or a plan of hers. And to be fair, she was a little busy to be organizing a lawsuit at this time to a split

between trying to get this very painful problem figured out and documenting that process and posting it online. And that appears to be it. So checking in, it's been nearly a week. since Tessica went public with her saga, and still nothing has been figured out, except that the internet was wrapped with attention. As vaccines continued to be disseminated across the world, and I'm not joking, Benjamin Netanyahu was on court for a bribery charge. Time is a flat circle. And you'll notice from what we've even discussed so far,

there is a pretty wide range of reactions to Tessica's story. And I think that this is because you can easily trade. a wide range of diversity in the race, age, and gender of accounts that are replying to support her or not. By the time Tessico went to the hospital, prominent figures had begun commenting on her situation as well, including Chants the Rapper. And more relevantly to what I'm trying to talk about, Sunny Hosten of DeVue, who tweeted the following. So many are being dismissive of hashtag gorilla glue girl. Given the history of how black women are targeting, and still battle the pervasive belief that our natural hair is unprofessional, unkempt,

and in some way a statement, please show her some grace and understanding. Pessica's story is tied into the historical relationship with black women and their hair, a topic that has been spoken on extensively over the years. Some major examples are the 2009 documentary Good Hair, host of by Chris Rock, and the Oscar-winning short film and best-selling children's book, Hair Love by Matthew Cherry, just to name a few. My name is Ziri, and I have hair that has a mind of its own. It kinks, coils, and curls every which way.

But I'll link more resources in the description as well. And Tessica's story is one of the iconic main character moments that revolves around black hair. So many of the top comments come from black users on TikTok. Of course, plenty of these users are teasing Tessica and are baffled at the choice in using gorilla glue, and the media clapback at Tessica specifically reeks of misogynoir. And this was thankfully called attention to,

although not with the same frequency as the clickbait, you won't believe what happened, how embarrassing style of post. Not by a long shot. But these essays do exist. They do exist. This is from a February 8th, 2021 piece from Essence by Candace Benbow. Perhaps all this history is what joined so many of our hearts to Tessica's plight. We may have never had an industrial product for styling purposes,

but we've done things to our hair and to ourselves we wished we hadn't. We were endeared to her because we know what's like to be judged by the biggest mistake you've ever made and not to be given the compassion and empathy necessary to move through its implications. All across social media, there are scores of people suggesting Tessica is attention-seeking and deserves whatever she gets. She should have known better. In a world where hacks are celebrated and people become internet sensations overnight for discovering new uses for old products, Tessica is villainized because her attempt resulted in failure. Why is it so easy to dehumanize black women when we make mistakes?

Why must compassion for us be measured and mediated? How different would the response to Tessica be if she were white? We don't have to wonder too long about the answers to these questions. We know them already. We know black girls and women have to be perfect. there is no room for error. And when we mess up, we know it was nobody's fault but our own. And we know we live in communities that won't let us forget it either. And unfortunately, a lot of what Candace is describing here, the quickness to demonize and shame

Tassica Brown does bear out a number of times in the days that followed. And I also want to mention that, yes, many people did accuse Tessica of spraying gorilla glue in her hair. just for attention and just to go viral, which I think is pretty clearly not true, but also speaks to the internet brain of what we are conditioned to believe people will do for attention, including hurt themselves. Right. Moving on, another piece from the King County hazardous waste management program adds to this. While most would never dream of putting gorilla glue anywhere near their body, sometimes black women need to venture outside the hair care aisle to find products that work, castor oil, olive oil, mayonnaise, and superglue are all used for

hairstyling purposes. Also, many products marketed exclusively for black women include chemical-based products like hair relaxers, texturizers, and bonding glues. Research over the years has shown there are fewer non-toxic options in black hair products than there are in those marketed to the general public. Although understudied, there's growing evidence that a high number of products marketed for black hair care contain known harmful chemicals linked to cancer, reproductive problems, hormone disruption, asthma, and other adverse health effects. In the coming weeks, Pasica Brown would be very forthcoming about how a cultural emphasis on whiteness factored into how she had felt about her own hair in the past.

Later in February, she reflected on her early life, telling ABC Chicago about her experience in middle school. She said, I thought if you have another flaw, if your hair is together, you know, you look better. If I can't do nothing else, I'm going to make sure my hair is on point. This has been a problem for me for a long time. If I wouldn't have cared so much about my hair, I wouldn't be going through this right now. So, again, it is really overly simplistic to characterize Tessica's action as beyond the pale ridiculous.

Even if, like Tessica says now, she's embarrassed by making them. mistake. It's a decision that exists in a far larger context, one that ranges from historical racism and misogyny to the fact that she was working full-time during a pandemic and was likely just as burned out as anybody was. It was a mistake. But as the days continued, people didn't seem to get tired of making fun of her as the situation reached its peak. On Monday, February 9th, Tessica gave her first interview to Kiss 925 in Toronto. saying that she was waiting to shave her head as a last resort and felt, quote, some type of way, unquote, about people making fun of her.

Fair enough. On Tuesday, things really kick up. Behind the scenes and unbeknownst to the public at the time, Tessica had been reached out to by manager Gina Rodriguez. Not that one. This Gina Rodriguez is a reality and viral star manager, including a number of names you know, some of the real housewives, Mama June of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, Scott Dissick of the Kardashians,

Tori Spelling, the Ocean Spray skateboard guy, Nathan Apodaca, Gina Rodriguez, answer my email, I want to talk to him. The list goes on, right? And when Gina heard about Tessica's story, she both seemed to see a person who needed help and a potential business opportunity. Rodriguez got in touch with Tessica to connect her with a plastic surgeon who she knew in L.A., one who claimed that he had the ability to save her hair and would do the procedure in Beverly Hills for free. Enter Dr. Michael Obeng. Who has over 20 years of experience in the industry.

And finally, it seemed like Tessica had a solution. She announced she was heading out to Beverly Hills in an emotional interview with Entertainment Tonight that same day. I'm not that person y'all trying to make me out today. I'm not that person. I'm not this whole guerrilla group girl. My name is Tessica Brown. Call me.

I'll talk to you. I'll let you know exactly who I am. And on Wednesday, February 10th, Tessica Brown arrived in a red hoodie and a mask to L.A.X. Where there was, and I'm not joking, literal paparazzi waiting for her as she headed out to Dr. Obeng's office. This story was big. The procedure was done that evening.

And while Tessica recovered, the good doctor got a little PR. by giving CBS Los Angeles an update. Tessica is doing well. She's awake. The hair crew is doing her hair. This interview also revealed maybe one of the most impressive things I've ever heard, which is that Dr. Obeng literally created a new chemical product to remove the gorilla glue, and it was successful.

He invented a whole new thing, and TMZ, classy as ever, filmed and posted the whole procedure. If you feel anything, if you're too uncomfortable, let me know we can get you more payments, okay? Which is a potential insight into why this $12,500 procedure was done for free. Look, I'll be honest, I could not bring myself to watch the video of the procedure. I'm too squeamish. But the final procedure is said to have taken four hours while Tessica was under a light anesthetic. For the LA Times, Dr. Obeng's potion was a combination of medical adhesive remover, aloeuvre, olive oil, and acetone. mixed in a way to prevent harm to her scalp.

The healing process was estimated to be about two or three months, and thank God, it worked. And yes, of course, Dr. Obeng mentioned he was considering selling the product in the future. Put a pin in that. So finally, a week after this whole TikTok saga began, and over a month after the glue had been put in her hair in the first place, Tessica's head was gorilla glue-free. And now she was internet famous, complete with an entertainment manager and a full-blown press tour that ranged from network TV to, more prominently, her ever-growing social media feeds.

And once she was liberated from the glue with Rodriguez signed, Tessica Brown showed no signs of slowing down. She launched an official merch site on February 12th, featuring her image from the viral TikTok with the caption, bond it for life, pretty good. And sure, people clowned on her for printing merch over a one social media moment, but people were watching and buying the stuff, with an estimated million and a half social media posts about the Gorilla Glue incident by the middle of this month. And like William Hung and Ken Bone before her,

Pesica Brown even broke through to appear in a middling SNL sketch on February 14th. So, it happened to you? Your worst nightmare. We've all been there. You ran out of hair product, and you used gorilla glue instead. And it turned your beautiful luscious mane into a hard candy shed. That's Kenan Thompson and Regina King, not shabby. And throughout this time, Pesica was adamant about who she is.

And to me, it's admirable how she continued to remind. reporters and online randos that she didn't appreciate being called the guerrilla glue girl and that her plan was to forge ahead with her business and the dance team that she had coached her daughters on before this incident. In a profile of her from Vox by Melinda Fakuade on February 19th, Tessica said, clout is something I will never chase, I promise you. The dance team was in a commercial, they were in newspapers, they were in a magazine, that's enough clout for me. I don't need all this because this was just way, way too much. And truly, who would want to go through that pain I went through for clout? Again, this is Tessica having to stave off the accusations

that she had done the whole very painful ordeal for attention. But the internet couldn't let go of the Gorilla Glue moment. There were, from what I could find, at least two copycats who were ostensibly trying to, like, bust the idea that superglue could have caused this much damage to Tessica Brown's hair and life. And the results? Drumroll. Both of these MythBusters went to the hospital.

Great job, guys. Myth busted. Look, if you know anything about the internet, this is nothing new. social media has always been a place where random challenges that could possibly kill you rule the algorithm.

Examples, in the early 2010s, the cinnamon challenge, where someone puts a spoonful of uncut, ground cinnamon into their mouth with no water. All right, so here's the cinnamon. All right? All right, here go.

Or how? How about the Tide Pod Challenge, which was a 2017-18 social media craze where users were mainlining laundry pods because they were colorful? I don't know. I have no insight. People died eating those. Eight deaths were associated with ingestion of the packets. Two in children under one year old and six in adults with a history of dementia. This will never stop. And as disinformation gets worse, I think we'll see these kinds of things get more. dangerous. But the copycats going to the hospital is just another way that Tessica Brown's saga continued kind of much longer than your average social media main character. For some expected reasons, Tessica was willing to engage with the story, and it was also a rare social media

moment that continued to develop as the days passed. I remember observing this story. You would want to check in on how she was doing. All of the commenters are wanting updates, wanting to know that she's okay. But once the procedure with Dr. Obeng was complete, of course, things began to sort of die down. But by this point, Tessica had a following. It was this weird mistake that brought her to prominence, but Tessica is funny, she's attractive, and she was interested in continuing to post and see how this fluke could potentially improve her quality of life. And it really seems to have. A few quick things, though, there has been some speculation about how the money from Tessica's GoFundMe was dispersed after she received the hair procedure

from Dr. Obing for free. This is a report from the New York Post, so take it with a heavy grade of salt, but they stated that the GoFundMe had been put under investigation by the platform when Tessica announced that she would be donating at $23,000 raised in the early days of the guerrilla glue panic to local families and other causes. And to be clear, there's no doubt that she did give a chunk of that money in the form of $1,000 big checks to local families in Louisiana in need, and she says to have donated the rest to Dr. Obeng's nonprofit Restore Worldwide Incorporated

to support his ongoing effort to provide complementary reconstructive surgery to people in need abroad. Moving into late February, still less than a month after her viral fame began, Tessica became a news item again after returning to Dr. Obeng for a follow-up about her hair procedure, which it turns out was also a consultation for additional work with the doctor, including a breastlift, implants, and some liposuction, per the New York Post. At the time, there were lumps detected in Tessica's breast in these early consultations, which were thankfully removed and she announced were benign. And from there, she moved ahead with the procedures, also including some complementary dental work from another provider in the L.A. area. And so accusations

lingered in her comments section that these procedures were where the remaining GoFundMe money actually went, but there is no proof to show things went one way or another. But now, with manager Gina Rodriguez at her side, Pesica continued to forge ahead, and can you guess what she did next? That's right.

Tessica Brown released a hair care product named Forever Hair. Just a couple months later, in June 2021. And yes, the comments to this are what you'd expect. Nah, it might be gorilla glue in it. LOL get the bag, sis, et cetera, and on and on. But this product got press, and I can understand why people will be curious about it. At launch, Forever Hair sold two products, an $18 growth stimulating oil and a $14

forever hold spray. And while these products didn't stick around on the market, they did sell out. another testament to Tessica Brown's staying power and the work taking place on her management side. And before 2021 was over, she'd gone viral two more times. Once for trying to dye her grays before her scalp was healed enough to handle more chemicals... I decided that I was going to start wearing my real hair.

But when I looked at it, you know, I had a gray hair here, a gray hair there. So me thinking that my hair is strong enough to take chemicals, dude, no, it wasn't. And another time for doing what at least two other 16th minute subjects have done in the past by my math, Tessa made a play at a music career when she released a rap single in November 2021. It's fun, whatever. And through 2022, Tessa continued to post regularly to her platforms, while continuing her business. And in early 2023,

she made it all the way to cable TV and appeared on a season of the Food Network Competition Worst Cooks in America after auditioning. I'm Tessica Brown. I'm a daycare provider from Valley, Louisiana.

What are you famous for? I ran out of headsprice, so I sprayed gorilla glue in my house. Oh, you're a gorilla glue. My help, it don't move. And these days, almost four years later, Tessica Brown's life is pretty similar to what it was when she first became a viral star. She still runs her daycare, she's had another child, and by her account, she's now in a much

happier relationship than she was at the time. The difference of four years mainly is that she also has millions of eyes on her lifestyle content across platforms, mostly Instagram and, now a facet of her life, TikTok. And when we come back, I speak exclusively. with Tessica Brown herself. A foot washed up a shoe with some bones in it. They had no idea who it was. Most everything was burned up pretty good from the fire

that not a whole lot was salvageable. These are the coldest of cold cases, but everything is about to change. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA. Right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime. A small lab in Texas is cracking the code on DNA. Using new scientific tools, they're finding clues in evidence so tiny you might just miss it. He never thought he was going to get caught, and I just looked at my computer screen.

I was just like, ah, gotcha. On America's Crime Lab, we'll learn about victims and survivors, and you'll meet the team behind the scenes at Othrum, the Houston Lab that takes on the most hopeless cases, to finally solve the unsolvable. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Ed. Everyone say hello, Ed. I'm from a very rural background myself. My dad is a farmer. And my mom is a cousin. So, like, it's not like... What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club?

I know it sounds like the start of a bad joke, but that really was my reality nine years ago. I just normally do straight stand-up, but this is a bit different. On stage stood a comedian with a story that no one expected to hear. The 22nd of July 2015, a 23-year-old man had killed his family. And then he came to my house. So what do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? A new podcast called Wisecrack, where stand-up comedy and murder takes center stage. Available now.

Listen to Wisecrack on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sometimes it's hard to remember, but... Going through something like that is a traumatic experience, but it's also not the end of their life. That was my dad, reminding me and so many others who need to hear it, that our trauma is not our shame to carry, and that we have big, bold, and beautiful lives to live after what happened to us. I'm your host and co-president of this organization, Dr. Leah, On my new podcast, The Unwanted Sorority, we weighed through transformation to peel back healing and reveal what it actually looks like, and sounds like in real time. Each week, I sit down with people who live through harm, carried silence, and are now reshaping the systems that failed us.

We're going to talk about the adultification of black girls, mothering as resistance, and the tools we use for healing. The Unwanted Sorority is a safe space, not a quiet space, so let's walk in. We're moving towards liberation together. Listen to the unwanted sorority, new episodes every Thursday on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth? Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced. He said, you are a number, a New York state number, and we own you. Shock incarceration.

also known as boot camps, are short-term, highly regimented correctional programs that mimic military basic training. These programs aim to provide a shock of prison life, emphasizing strict discipline, physical training, hard labor, and rehabilitation programs. Mark had one chance to complete this program and had no idea of the hell awaiting him the next six months.

The first night was so overwhelming, and you don't know who's next to you. And we didn't know what to expect in the morning. Nobody tells you anything. Listen to shock incarceration on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your entire identity has been fabricated. Your beloved brother goes missing without a trace. You discover the depths of your mother's illness, the way it has echoed and reverberated throughout your life, impacting your very legacy.

Hi, I'm Danny Shapiro. And these are just a few of the profound and powerful stories I'll be mining on our 12th season of Family Secrets. With over 37 million downloads, we continue to be moved and inspired by our guests and their courageously told stories. I can't wait to share 10 powerful new episodes with you, stories of tangled up identities, concealed truths,

and the way in which family secrets almost always need to be told. I hope you'll join me and my extraordinary guests for this new season of Family Secrets. Listen to Family Secrets Season 12 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to 16th Minute. My name's Jamie Loftus, and I just started taking ADHD medication. I feel like half of my body is underground, and the other half is 40 feet above sea level. Is that how the human experience is supposed to feel? Please discuss on the Reddit board.

And today, we are revisiting the 2021 saga of Tessica Brown getting gorilla glue in her hair. As you've heard, this story was wild and continued to stretch on. Tessica is still active on Instagram and TikTok to this day, and she recently switched management teams to continue expanding on what she can do with her story and her online fame. But now that it's been nearly four years since the original event, I wanted to hear Tassica's story in her own words. And thankfully, she was generous enough to give us some of her time. So without further ado, here's my talk with Tessica Brown. Hi, my name is Tessica Brown.

I'm 43 years old, and I'm from St.phinaw, Paris, New Orleans, Louisiana. I want to start by talking about your life a little bit. Where are you from? How did you grow up? I want to know a little bit more about you prior to this moment. Okay. I'm from Louisiana, but I'm from like a little small town right outside of New Orleans. It's called St. Phenal Parish.

If you had to raise your children anywhere, this would be the place I would go. I have five sisters, well, four sisters, two brothers. I have five kids. I've been owning my daycare for 10 years now. I had a dance team when the glue thing first happened. I made the dance team for my girls. I have three girls. Are you still running the daycare now? Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Because you were in your late 30s, early 40s when this happened, and I talked to people with such a wide age range for this show. What was your relationship with the internet like at the time that this happened? Did you post a lot? Yeah. What was your relationship with the internet? I have one video on TikTok, only one. I used to go live a lot on Facebook. Like, Facebook was my thing, you know, because my kids was like, you know, this is where you belong on Facebook. I guess because, you know, yeah.

That's where parents call on. Right, right. I did a lot of posting on Instagram. And like I said, I went live a lot on Facebook, but I only had one video on TikTok. I had like a little singing, my intro to TikTok. That was the one video. but then came the girl a glue. You'd been using Facebook and Instagram for a long time.

Did you have audiences sort of like outside of your general family or circle or was it? Yes. I had, I had on Instagram, I had like, I want to say like 10,000 followers. And I feel like that was because like I have the daycare and we do, I do prom for the daycare. I do, yeah, I do, I have pictures if you want to see. I do parades every year. And I felt like I got a lot of. followers doing that. Like, especially when you're a small business owner, figuring out how to make

social media, like, kind of work for you. Right. So you had some idea of, like, how to make social media work for you. Okay. Yeah, now it's to the point where I post something. Now I'm looking to see how many people watched it. Who commented? Yeah, it's totally different from before. That's so interesting. I'm very excited to talk about that sort of shift. But first, of course, we've got to go through the day itself. Um, so I've seen the original series of videos many times. What motivated you to post this to TikTok specifically? My little girl, my daughter.

So she suggested, like, well, maybe someone here will know what to do? Yeah, because the thing is, I kept saying, you know, I don't know what I was doing. Because I was scared to even tell my mama because I figured she was going to come over here and, you know, slap me in my head. You know, you shouldn't have did that. So that's why I didn't want to call her. But when it got to the point where the ponytail just kept getting tighter and tighter, it felt like my scalp you know how when your legs fall asleep yeah that's what it felt like inside my head like just tingling yeah just tingling all the time so I'm like you know what I have to call

mama and we like to call mama Dr. Quinn medicine woman because she know pretty much how to do no matter what you say this lady could tell you exactly what to do and how to get rid of it so she came and we did a whole bunch of stuff at it's before the TikTok gotcha and absolutely nothing nothing she did work and I knew if my mom Mama didn't know, I have to go, you know, social media. So my baby was like, Mom, put it on TikTok. Yeah. And I'm like, I only have, like, one video on TikTok.

She said, Ma, put it on TikTok. So I put it on TikTok that night. And I'm thinking, I'm guessing, like 9 o'clock at night, I put it on TikTok. Got up the next morning, you know, getting my children ready for school. Dollar girl jumps up because I wake them up. I go to their doors and I start waking everybody up. Yeah. So the oldest one, after she got up, you know, she checked our phone before she even get up and brush her teeth.

Yeah. She come running. And I'm like, what's the room? Ma, you got over a million followers. Girl, you going viral. I'm like, well, wait, did somebody say, you know, how I could get it off? My, you were but the wrong thing. I'm like, you know what?

Dude, I need somebody to help me get this off. She was worried with the numbers. I'm trying to, you know, get this off or whatever. Yeah. So, yeah, I started going through the comments. Oh, my God. Those comments? Yeah, what was this first wave of comments like?

Listen, I promise you, I knew it was going to be like people. people around here that's going to be like, oh, you know, that was stupid or that was dumb. I didn't think for one second the world was going to, you know what I'm saying? And it got to the point where they're telling me, you know, of course I'm dumb. That was stupid. And then letters started coming to the house. I literally got a letter to the house. And the thing is they had my address because, of course, I have the daycare.

So everything was. And I didn't think, again, I didn't think that it was going to do like it did because I probably would have took all that at all first. But I just thought, you know, there's going to be people around here. They started sending me stuff. They was called. The phone, the phone was just ridiculous. I ended up taking my phone and threw my phone. I'm not answering absolutely nobody else.

Because, again, my phone number was on social media. So, I mean, they called. You stupid. So I answered the phone. You dumb. Like, it was bad. And then the letter, when the letter came, it was, they drew. Me, right?

Yeah. With my head cut off with, I'm holding it like this. Oh, my God. It was some bad, bad people. It was, and the thing is, you know, like, sometimes you think, like, people think this stuff, but for you to really say this stuff and do this stuff, I thought it was complete light of line. Because I can say a lot of stuff on social media, but I don't. I would send it in a text message to my sisters.

You know what I'm saying? I'm never going to post that. That was really, really hurtful. And don't say, like, maybe three. days after it happened, dragged me for two weeks. She called me a nothing girl. She didn't put this in her head. They kept saying I was cloud chasing. Let me tell you that ma'am. If anybody that really know me, I don't like to be embarrassed. I hate being embarrassed. If I'm outside and I rip my pain, I hate being embarrassed. So that, me doing that, trust me, I wouldn't

did it. If I didn't know, I would have just probably died with my head like that. I would and never put it up. I promise you. Which is so unfair. I mean, I totally hear you. And part of what kind of confuses me about people's reaction, I mean, people are just out of their mind and always looking for someone to be cruel to. I mean, I feel like that's rule number one of the internet.

I've been so confused about how the TikTok algorithm works. I feel like everyone is just erasing the fact that you weren't trying to reach anyone outside of like your general area. But because no one knows how the TikTok algorithm works, it just got sucked up and like regurgitated to everybody. And how was that your fault? It was bad. I mean, I want to go back to those first couple of days as well because, I mean, just going

back through the story, it seems like you're not only dealing with suddenly the eyeballs and attention of millions of people, but you're also still dealing with the physical problem. So how do you manage those first couple of days where there's like two really stressful things going on. We started looking at some of the comments. And they were saying, well, use this. Use that. Use this. So now glue be going, acetone, the stuff I started using. Now, of course, it was pretty, you know, as I'm trying to keep getting it off myself. But now I'm following what they're telling me. So now I got cotton balls stuck to it. The inside is, it's not just tingling. is burning. That first day, Judy, Judy called me. And that's from kaleidoscope. Did you just find the

TikTok? Yeah, yeah. And she, of course, again, my number was on there. She said, oh, well, I'm about to send you a bunch of stuff. Okay, thank you. You know, it's something that's going to be in it, you know, get it off. Yeah. Oh, no, this is for, to grow your head back. Well, we're still trying to get it off at this point. So my sister was like, you know what? Like when it all started, she said, you know what, you're going to have to have surgery, you know what I'm saying, to get this off. Like, dude, nobody going to give me surgery, you know, to get this off. So now she's answering my phone. She gave me the lady Gina, a lady named Gina. She said, call her in the morning and I ended up calling Gina next morning. And Gina is your eventual manager. Yeah, right.

But I'm still wondering, like, when is somebody going to tell me, you know, like what I can do? You know what I'm saying? Everybody's trying to tell me what they can do for me and what they get, but I'm still have a headache. My head is burning now. Like, it's just, nobody's telling me what to do. So she called me back and say, well, I talked to a doctor, and the doctor said he could take it off. And not only can he take it off, you're going to take it off for free.

Three days later, I was in Los Angeles. So is this all happening in less than a week, kind of? Less than a week. Wow. Okay. I was in Los Angeles. What he did, when she first called him, he thought it was a joke until she was like, no, I'm really, really serious.

So he went and bought a can of gorilla glue, and he sprayed it on a mannequin head. So he went to putting all kind of stuff together to see if you could take it out. And whatever he put together, he was able to take it out the mannequin heat. And they flew me out there. And I tell you, they flew me out there. It took four hours for the surgery. And when I woke up, I was able to, oh, my God, I promise you. I'm trying to wrap my head around what a crazy week that is for you.

Right. You start, I mean, because the day, the day you posted the TikTok, it was just a normal work day, right? Like you'd. Right. And then a week later, you're in, in Beverly Hills getting a surgery that was developed just for you. Like, even my parents that were coming to the door, they was like, oh, girl, I just thought you liked that hairstyle. Like, nobody, nobody knew why it was like that for that long. How long was your hair stuck before you, uh, posted to TikTok? Over 30 days. Okay. Over 30 days. And it's just like it's just, like I said, it's just the ponytail thing, it just kept getting tighter. And it was tingling in the inside. And it got to the point where I just couldn't do it anymore.

I'm taking Advil P.M's like I'm eating M&Ms. When this starts to go viral, when you start to get this like absurd amount of attention that no one could be prepared for it, much less with their scalp on fire. How did your family and friends react? How did they come together for you? I think it's very funny, like, the generation gap of your daughter being like the numbers. Oh, no. Listen, my sisters was like that too. My mama was the only one that sat there and cried with me.

My little sister, she was there with me through the whole thing. I'm talking from coming from the hospital because, you know, I ended up going to the emergency room. Because after they was telling me all the stuff they used, this is when it got beyond, I can't even take it anymore. I went to the emergency room and the lady was like, oh, I just seen you. She just seen me on TikTok. Oh, my God. So she gets me in and she has this acetone stuff. And she's trying to get it out.

So it's to the point where I'm going to be in this hospital. So it was either me being in hospital all this time and end up having a heart attack. Because as she's taking the stuff off, it's burning so bad. My pressure kept going up. So I asked her, can she give me this stuff? And then I could go home and do it. And then, you know, my sister and my mama, they could take their time and, you know, do it. something at a time, but it was just burning so much. And then, like, the next date, that's when

Gina told me about Dr. O'Bang. So we just stopped and just waited to go out there. Right before that, my sister started, my little baby sister, she started to go for me because she was like, you know, you're going to need surgery. Then she said, once you're going to be bald, you're going to need wigs. And if anybody knows, these wigs, not cheap these days. So she started to go for me. And I think she put it for, I think it was like $5,000. She put for the gold fund me. The gold fund me raised $26,000. Wow. Then they started saying that I'm suing Gorilla Glue. Now people, oh, they want their money back from the gold fund me. And this is when people went crazy on me. Wait, can you, this, where did that

rumor come from? I don't even know. I don't even know. Because listen, when this happened, when I seen the numbers and everybody was talking about it, I emailed Gorilla Glue myself. And I told them, I'm sorry for all of this, you know, attention. I love your products. I'm sorry. And that was it. Yeah, which is super kind of you. I mean, yeah, you didn't know them.

Yeah, because I didn't want that. I didn't want that. I didn't want that. And I didn't want no negative stuff. But then Gorilla Glue would say it's something like, you know, just a bunch of free publicity. Everybody was buying it just to make these videos. So this rumor came up that you were suing Gorilla Glue and then people got upset. How did that play out?

I did it on purpose, just as a super little do. And here's the thing, again, I have a daycap. I've been having this daycare for 10 years. Yeah. I'm okay. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. I didn't need, I felt like, I'm going to say this.

I felt like with the whole daycare, I was doing way better in life before this happened. I understand why no one trusts anyone on the internet, but it's so obvious. You didn't post a lot to TikTok. You have a whole life. And you can't control what goes viral on TikTok. Like, it seems completely random. How does, where do things land with the, with the GoFundMe in the longer term? Okay.

With the GoFundMe, I ended up taking it down. And because I even have to make it a whole, do a whole appeal because they message and the GoFundMe people. So we have to do a whole appeal. And then when he sent it to me, $3,000 of the dollars, I came back home and I gave three different families a thousand dollars and then with the rest of it i gave the doctor obeying because he did the surgery for me for free right he did the surgery for free and then he goes to like africa he goes all kind of like Ghana he goes everywhere and he do all of these surgeries for you know

like the babies with the cleft lips and he really do like all kind of free surgeries so i felt like if i give this to him that can help him help a lot of more people then they told me oh that was dumb. You should have never gave that money. Like, nothing I did. Nothing I did was okay. Everything I did was wrong. They fussed at me for doing a good fund me. They fussed at me from giving it away. It was just nothing. Absolutely nothing I did. It was okay. We'll be right back with more of my talk with Tessica Brown. What would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth.

Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced. He said, you are a number, a New York State number, and we own you. Shock incarceration, also known as boot camps, are short-term, highly regimented correctional programs that mimic military basic training. These programs aim to provide a shock of prison life, emphasizing strict discipline, physical training, hard labor, and rehabilitation programs. Mark had one chance to complete this program and had no idea of the hell awaiting him the next six months.

The first night was so overwhelming, and you don't know who's next to you. And we didn't know what to expect in the morning. Nobody tells you anything. Listen to shock incarceration on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A foot washed up a shoe with some bones in. They had no idea who it was. Most everything was burned up pretty good from the fire that not a whole lot was salvageable.

These are the coldest of cold cases, but everything is about to change. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA. Right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime. A small lab in Texas is cracking the code on DNA. Using new scientific tools, they're finding clues in evidence so tiny you might just miss it. He never thought he was going to get caught. And I just looked at my computer screen. I was just like, ah, got you.

On America's Crime Lab, we'll learn about victims and survivors. And you'll meet the team behind the scenes at Othrum, the Houston Lab that takes on the most hopeless cases to finally solve the unsolvable. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Ed. Everyone say hello, Ed.

from a very rural background myself my dad is a farmer and my mom is a cousin so like it's not what do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club I know it sounds like the start of a bad joke but that really was my reality nine years ago

I just normally do straight stand-up but this is a bit different on stage stood a comedian with a story that no one expected to hear 22nd of July 2015 a 23 year old man had killed his family. And then he came to my house.

So what do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? A new podcast called Wisecrack, where stand-up comedy and murder takes center stage. Available now. Listen to Wisecrack on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sometimes it's hard to remember.

but going through something like that is a traumatic experience but it's also not the end of their life that was my dad reminding me and so many others who need to hear it that our trauma is not our shame to carry and that we have big bold and beautiful lives to live after what happened to us i'm your host and co-president of this organization dr leitra tate on my new podcast the unwanted sorority we weighed through transformation to peel back healing and reveal what it actually looks like and sounds like in real time. Each week, I sit down with people who live through harm, carried silence, and are now reshaping the systems that failed us. We're going to talk about the adultification of black girls, mothering as resistance, and the tools we use for healing. The unwanted sorority

is a safe space, not a quiet space. So let's lock in. We're moving towards liberation together. Listen to the unwanted sorority, new episodes every Thursday on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your entire identity has been fabricated. Your beloved brother goes missing without a trace. You discover the depths of your mother's illness, the way it has echoed and reverberated throughout your life, impacting your very legacy.

Hi, I'm Danny Shapiro. And these are just a few of the profound and powerful stories I'll be mining on our 12th season of Family Secrets. With over 37 million downloads, we continue to be moved and inspired by our guests and their courageously told stories. I can't wait to share 10 powerful new episodes with you, stories of tangled up identities, concealed truths, and the way in which family secrets almost always need to be told.

I hope you'll join me and my extraordinary guests for this new season of Family Secrets. Listen to Family Secrets Season 12 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. podcasts. Welcome back to 16th minute. I never used chat GPT because I'm ethically opposed to it, and it scared me. However, last night I was missing my dad, and so I went on chat GPT, and I asked chat GPT, who was Mike Loftus, hoping to read something like nice about my dad and folks, chat GPT told me Mike Loftus was comedian and podcaster Jamie Loftus's ex-boyfriend or ex-partner. So I dated my dead dad according to the scary computer. Love that that's what the historical register will show. And here's the rest of my conversation with

Jessica Brown. So you go to L.A., thankfully you're able to get this resolved. Right. I guess before I because I want to talk about how the management stuff sort of came together originally. But I do want to talk about there were also some copycats. How did that come together? What? Okay. The girl with the purple hair, a boy, I don't know if it was a girl or boy. I'm sorry, I don't know.

But that person did it. They didn't do her nearly as bad as it did me. And she was trying to prove a point that, oh, you can put this on and take it right off. And she ended up in hospital. Then it was another man that put gorilla glue on a cup. He had to get the top of his lip cut off. I'm telling y'all, don't do this. Like, this is serious.

Right. You never ride to start. Like, I didn't get that at all. But nobody said nothing about them talking about me like I was the dumb one. You have that stuff. And then there's also, I mean, the media starts to pick up on this. How did you manage that? How did you decide who to engage with or who not to all while you're dealing with this medical emergency?

I talked with Jess hilarious. Okay. I, like, talk with her on the phone. And here's the thing, I've been loving her since a long time ago. And when I seen that she was calling me, I was scared to answer because I know she's a comedian. So I feel like you're going to be like, you know, but she was like, Tess, babe, you know, what's going on? And I told her what happened. She was like, I'm so sorry.

That made me the love I had for her, when a thousand plus. It was a lot of people like saying, you know, it's going to be okay, you know, you're going to get through this. But then it was those other ones. You specifically mentioned the Wendy Williams coverage. As those things come through, how do you take that in stride? How does that affect you? Before Wendy would say to everything she was saying, I love Wendy. You know, me and Mom watched Wendy all the time.

Like, you know how are you doing all the time? Yeah. So what happened was as she just kept every day, this lady had my picture on her screen. My mama, my mama called the show, and she played it on her show. She played it. My mama called this show and said, Wendy, my baby made a mistake. You know, I love you. My baby meat is, they, can you please cut us some slack?

And then after that, she bought a bunch of shirts for everybody that was in the audience. I said, I don't like her, but, you know. Okay, so I want to take you back to L.A. You've gotten this surgery done successfully. You can finally think a little more clearly. And you've been connected with Gina. So how does that relationship come together? And how did you decide to be like, I need a manager to sort of navigate this time?

No, well, she called me, like I said, and I called her the next day, and she was like, you know, this is big. I know you're trying to get it off, but this is big. I can do this and I can do that. What kind of things? She was Honey Boo Boo Boo's manager. I know a lot of people. You know, I can get it. You know, she told me like she can find somebody. I didn't know she really want to find somebody, but she was saying she could find somebody and she can help me through this whole thing. And that was it. It was a lot of people. wanted to do interviews and I didn't, you know, know what to do or how to, so she set up, like she would send me a whole like layout. You have an interview at this time, interview at this time, interview at this time, interview at this time. How do all the interviews, call a lot of noise done, get ready for the next one. And like I said, the biggest thing, I didn't care about the interviews. The biggest thing she did for me was finding, um, Dr. O'Bing. Because that's like life changing. It was. This is something I've talked with a lot of people about in the past of, you know,

going from your everyday life to all of a sudden having a spreadsheet of like here are my interviews for the day. What is that change like where all of a sudden you're like a public figure overnight? But let me tell you. The thing was I feel like if I can do all those interviews over now, it would be better because every interview I was doing, I was crying, like ugly crying every interview. Yeah. Yeah, they asked me questions. And I mean, you know, it just, it had just happened. I'm ugly crying on every interview. Listen, I lost 20 pounds and everything. it was bad. It was really, really bad. And then like two weeks after we got the glue off, you know, he gave me these. Oh, really?

Mm-hmm. Wait, walk me through that. He did a mommy makeover two weeks later. And, you know, since I've been through so much, he was saying, I'm going to do your mommy makeover. So he gave me breast implants, and he did liposuction on my stomach. Wait, the doctor who did the scalp surgery? Same doctor, yes. Wait, hold on. So wait, you ended up, do you stay in L.A. for a little while after? No, after the glue thing, I think I stayed for like two days, and then we came back home.

Two weeks later, we went back. You flew out to get implants. And what else? A tummy tuck. And then they gave me these two. Wow. So, like, this is, okay, this is like the craziest month ever. So you go back to LA, you have these procedures done, what happens then?

Because now it's like, I feel like you became a social media star overnight. You go through this first wave of interviews where I think very understandably, you're very emotional. I'm always curious about that turning point of like, okay, now that the immediate huge moment is over, what am I going to do now? How much do I want to engage with this moving forward? Well, what happened was I went to L.A. for something. I don't know why I was going, but I was going for something else, right? I get off the plane and my phone, it's messages. I don't miss all kind of.

So I call them, I'm like, well, what's going on? You need to talk to your daughters and talk to them now. What's going on? The teacher came to one of my children and said, oh, we're so sorry for your loss. So they're thinking I went on this plane and the plane crashed. The internet said I died. It was, listen, it was everywhere. So now we got to the point where I'm on live.

Oh, I thought you died. And still to the day, I could get on live and somebody's going to say, oh, they told me you passed away. Like they literally killed me. So then a lot of stuff started dying off. And so how long after the original incident was this? Oh, this happened maybe what a month after I died. So Gorilla Glue Incident, surgery, interviews, implants, dead. Dead.

Like I said, all right, so if you know, if anybody that really, really know me, know me, in a situation, I always try to make it as a joke. I always try to make light of any situation. Just like I tell people now, right now, if I watch the video, I understand why people thought it was funny. I understand why people thought it was a joke. Because you know what? That was stupid.

That was nothing. But I understand now why people thought it was funny. I didn't understand then because I was so angry. Sure. But I understand now why they thought it was funny. You started developing a hair product from there. Yes. How did that come about?

What was that process like? Like I said, Dr. LeBang put some stuff together. And my hair, like all the little ball spots that I had, I had like ball spots here. But I still had some hair. But I went got it cut like shorter than after I first had the surgery. The stuff that he, you know, had my hair growing with, we bowled it up. Now, I was scared, don't get me wrong. I was scared to put it out because all I'm thinking, if I was somebody,

why would I want to buy something for my hell from her? You know what I'm saying? That first day, I made $70,000. I didn't make, you all, not me personally, but yeah, I had to split it with, you know, the people that was putting it together, the manager, $70,000 in the first day. And then we added edge control, we added some hair spray. but what happened with that demand was too much

because the people that I was doing it was like you know like a little there weren't no big time company that the man couldn't keep up what they was doing and we couldn't find anybody else to do it so that was it man that was it was going after that

and everybody keeps saying when are you bringing them in the process because the thing is they worked you know if people be like oh I'm using this you know just so I can get people to buy it yeah my head really grew from there I mean

because at this point we're kind of like a few months out from the original You mentioned earlier, like your attitude towards social media changed significantly. What does that mean interacting with social media after this first wave of craziness had passed? Before the craziness, it was, you know, like I said, go on live, talk about a football game. I'm just at the park with my kids. We just, you know, live, whatever.

Now I'm on live. Hey, y'all tap the screen. Share the live. Let's get these numbers. Why am I doing all this? You know what I'm saying? I post a video. every five minutes I go back to see how many views I shouldn't be doing it like I feel like that's

crazy I have never worried about numbers before it changed you it changes you it really changes you I try to keep my hair done now like once upon a time baby I would get on social media and just like you know whatever whatever but now I have to make sure my lashes is done I got to make sure because at this point because I have a couple of videos after that that went viral so now I'm like oh well I don't know what video can go viral. So I got to try to make myself presentable. Like even my children, they'll come to show me. Now it's, you know, at first it was, they were just posting stuff.

Now let me see this. Bring me this phone. Let me see this video. I need to see what's in the background. I need to see if anything on the floor. It's draining. I'm going to tell you that. It's draining.

It sounds like the kind of thing that once it starts like you don't, you don't really go back, right? No. Some people, if they do, you know, God bless them. But I would have never thought. this is how I would be when it comes to social media at this point. Now, don't get me wrong, I still post like me and my kids dancing, like, you know,

just, you know, little cute things. Yeah. I don't post nothing. Oh, well, let's do this because it can go viral. I don't do that. The answer is either, like, quit or you have to totally like... Or go with it. Like, get off all together because you know what's another bad thing?

Don't read comments. That would everybody keep telling me. Stop reading the comments. Stop reading the comments. Of course, me, read the comments, crying, ugly crying. Because, girl, them people, those comments. My thing is, because this is a lot of stuff that I see, that I could go make a comment on, but I wouldn't make a comment. I'll screenshot it and make the comment and send it in my sister's group. I'm not going to go on social media. Another thing is, if I wasn't as strong as I feel like I am, I would have unaligned myself a long time ago. This is how bad it was. This is how bad it was. And one boy, he ended up coming in my inbox, and he was like, I'm so sorry, Ms. Jessica, but I I'm in this troll group and we go around

and we just troll people and I'm sorry this happened to you I blocked them because you're not going to put me in my face over here and then try to come in my inbox and telling me you're sorry

so I ended up like I started blocking listen I think I'm like thousands of people that's blocked and one of my sons was like no you don't block nobody you know any engagement is no no no no I'm blocking you

it's to the point where when I look on social media unless I'm like, when I look on social media, the comments, I would think everybody in the world just loved me. But no, I have my son, he's on it and he's just taking off all the bad ones before I can see him. I think it's so cool. And also just like from a like internet culture perspective, interesting that your kids are helping you navigate this too. Because they, you know, were like born with phones in their hands, I'm assuming. Just because of like the generational difference.

How did they sort of help you through this moment? Was there anything where their feelings about what? what you should do or how you should interact with social media was different. Okay, this was the week. I didn't even have it off my hair yet when this first happened. There was a picture going around with a lady, like with pieces of hair, like everywhere. And of course, they say it was me. So I let them know, hey, you know, y'all know that's not me.

Look at my head. You know, it's still here. Y'all know it's not me. Go to school. Nobody told them about that. But they started singing the gorilla glue girl song. So my baby came home crying. And I just let her know, hey.

You know what you do? Learn the soul. And next time they're singing, y'all singing with them. But then I'm trying to encourage them and not go in the bathroom. And I start crying because it's like, because I put them, you know, I would go cry because, you know, I felt like I put them in that situation. And I didn't want my children to be bullied behind something, you know, that I did. But those same friends now it's like, oh, my God, it's Miss Jessica. They won't take pictures.

It seems like, I mean, a lot has changed and also not a lot has changed, right? Has your day-to-day shifted that much since the whole ordeal? No, I still get up at 5.30 in the morning, do my daycare. On a Saturday, I try to put a bunch of videos together so I can have, you know, stuff to post during the week. When it's time for the dance team to do anything, we still have practice. No, it's pretty much the same thing, except for anywhere I go, no matter where it is. Oh, my God, it's so. I went to Angola to go see my uncle.

Like, now I think all of that stuff is cute. Like when people call me a guerrilla girl now, it's like, hey, at first I kept saying, my name is Jessica. I cried so much, my name is Jessica. But now it's like, whatever. I'm going on and run with it. What motivates you to maintain this relationship with social media? Those little girls, my little girls.

And it's a lot. Listen, in between all of this, I promise you, it's so much. But next month, we start shooting a movie about what happened. Wait, how did that come about? What? It's a, his name is Elvin Gray. He's a director that usually, well, he just posts. He makes movies about people that went viral. This movie, I'm going to be in it. Like the other movies that he make, he pretty much is taking stuff from TikTok, seeing how it went or he's taking stuff from headlines. But with this one, he has all the information from me. So is that going to be made like you're acting in it or is a documentary? Yeah, I will be in it. I will be in it. I will be playing myself. Yeah, they're going to see. They're going to see. They're going to. to see, like, what happened right before I put this glue in my head. Well, if I was a normal human being that bullied me, I would be like, oh, my God, this girl was really going through a lot.

And we just put more. People have no clue what I was going through, like, in the house by myself before this glue thing, like, the day this glue thing happened. Right. But they'll be able to see it in the movie. Outside of that, what is next for you? Do you have, like, bigger social media aspirations or is it just sort of maintaining your normal life? Well, I have a new manager now and I was telling him that, you know, I wanted to do a swimsuit line. It's a couple of things that I want to do because like even when this first happened, my sister was like, girl, you have to leave that daycare alone. This is what I've always wanted to do. I worked at a daycare for seven years before Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Katrina came and we was, you know, displaced for like two years. We came back and I

seen that things were happening around here. I ended up getting a job, ended up quitting. But this is what I love. I don't care what happens. I will never ever let this daycare go. My final question is just sort of reflecting on these last couple of years at this point and the emotional and also like life changing journey you have been on. When you reflect on it now, would you do anything differently? And was there anything that really sort of surprised you? Okay. So as far as, Would I change anything? Promise you, wouldn't have never used the gorilla with her. Well, yeah.

Wouldn't have never. And then everything would just be, you know, still normal. Yeah, but I think that's the biggest thing. Look, don't use it. If you don't have it, go get it. If you can't get it, go without it. That's it. Thank you so much to Tessica for her time and her insight.

And keep your eyes peeled for her upcoming projects. You can follow her on Instagram or TikTok at I'm underscore D underscore old lady. And if nothing else, I hope this is the kind of 16th minute story that reminds you that people are people first. If you had been stressed enough to post an egregious L, this could have been you. So have some grace, and when it comes to capitalizing on these random internet moments, again, consider who that capitalizing is supporting.

If it's an already rich person exploiting followers, to become richer because they're Mormons who took PPP loans to buy Chanel purses. Get them. Check the list of episodes. But if they're capitalizing on their moment to keep getting by with joy and aren't hurting anyone, chill out. Tessica's awesome. Thanks for listening. And for your moment of fun, here's some more Regina King as Tessica Brown. Bye! Fact, every day as many as one people for our victim to use a gorilla glue in place of a beauty product.

and they deserve compensations. We all do. You should not have to go through life with hair like a Lego mask. Because one time you use Gorilla Glue instead of Dax Wave grease. We will get you monies for Gorilla Glue or the next best thing. A lifetime supply of Gorilla Glue. 16th Minute is a production of Cool Zone Media and IHeart Radio. It is written, hosted, and produced.

by me, Jamie Loftus. Our executive producers are Sophie Lichten and Robert Evans. The Amazing Ian Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor. Our theme song is by Sad 13.

Voice acting is from Grant Crater. And pet shout-outs to our dog producer Anderson, My Cats Flea and Casper, and my pet rock bird who will outlive us all. Bye!

I just normally do straight stand-up, but this is a bit different. What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club. Answer, a new podcast called Wisecrack, where a comedian finds himself at the center of a chilling true crime story. Does anyone know what show they've come to see? It's a story.

It's about the scariest night of my life. This is Wisecrack, available now. Listen to Wisecrack on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's Black Business Month and Money and Wealth Podcast with John Hope Brown. is tapping in. I'm breaking down how to build wealth, create opportunities, and move from surviving to thriving. It's time to talk about ownership, equity, and everything in between.

Black and brown communities have historically been last in life. Let me just say this. AI is moving faster than civil rights legislation ever did. Listen to money and wealth from the Black Effect Podcast Network on IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA right now, a backlog will be identified in our lifetime. On the new podcast, America's Crime Lab, every case has a story to tell, and the DNA holds the truth. He never thought he was going to get caught, and I just looked at my computer screen.

I was just like, ah, gotcha. This technology's already solving so many cases. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between? a maximum security prison or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth. Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced. He said, you are a number, a New York State number, and we own you.

Listen to shock incarceration on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're looking for another heavy podcast about trauma, This ain't it. This is for the ones who had to survive and still show up as brilliant, loud, soft, and whole. The unwanted sorority is where black women, fims, and gender expansive survivors of sexual violence rewrite the rules on healing, support, and what happens after. And I'm your host and co-president of this organization, Dr. Leitra Tate. Listen to the unwanted sorority, new episodes every Thursday, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.

Thank you.